Factom Announces Launch Date for Token Crowdsale

Factom has announced it will launch its forthcoming crowdsale on 31st March at 15:00 UTC.

Billed as a “software sale”, the event will allow consumers to exchange bitcoins for Factom tokens that will be available upon the blockchain-based recordkeeping network’s beta release.

Factom president Peter Kirby indicated that final launch date was set after his company met key objectives, including a certain threshold of confidence in its beta version as well as the finalization of milestones with decentralized application crowdfunding platform Koinify.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Kirby spoke about the challenge Factom faced when seeking to orchestrate the sale, voicing his optimism that the project would avoid the pitfalls of those held in the past on platforms such as Mastercoin.

Kirby said:

“We wanted to run the cleanest software token sale in history. We don’t want our customers to be caught up in that regulatory concern. It’s a new asset class, so we have to make sure we’re abiding by all the rules, but watching out for the rules that don’t exist yet.”

Crowdsale funds will be released in installments of 33%, with Factom being able to obtain a portion of its funds upon the release of its beta client, its front-end and peer-to-peer consensus mechanism, respectively.

The Koinify platform requires companies to set benchmarks, serving as the arbitrator between the public and decentralized applications. The crowdsale is the second such event to be held on Koinify following the inaugural sale of GetGems tokens launched in December.

The news comes amid a steady stream of announcements for Factom, which has recently signed partnerships with industry service providers such as Coinapult, Serica (formerly DigitalTangible) and Tether.

Compatibility challenge

Kirby went on discuss the issue posed by working with Koinify, which leverages the Counterparty protocol to conduct its sales.

Factom had originally intended to use the Omni protocol, an alternative layer that allows tokens to be issued on top of the bitcoin blockchain. However, it decided to leverage its own technology to forge a solution.

“Originally we were going to release a proxy token, but we’re going to be issuing our own token on the Koinify platform that runs on Factom. It’s no longer an Omni project or a Counterparty project, it really does live on its own,” Kirby said.

Kirby went on to say the “whole point” of Factom was to focus on distributed ledgers, a factor the lead to the decision to release the tokens on top of its own protocol.

He continued stating that he expects the token to be exchangeable between peers when the beta platform is released, with exchanges then having the ability to decide whether to list the asset for trading.

Bitcoin only

To make purchases on the Koinify platform, customers will need to first purchase bitcoin. Bitcoins will then be sent to a public Factom address, which will contain the purchaser’s public key in a data field.

“When the Factom blockchain launches, the information embedded in all these bitcoin transactions will be used to generate the Factom tokens and load them into the purchasers’ wallets automatically,” the release states.

Factom said it will not be taking customer information as part of the sale, a process that will be mirrored by Koinify, which stressed it does not accept or transmit virtual currency, control bitcoin addresses or hold public keys as part of the sale.

“Koinify's job is to make sure that the best practices as far as the accountability (milestones) and transparency of this sale are followed and implemented in the crypto field and we do not desire nor need to control funds or currencies,” the company said.

Both parties indicated that more details would be released ahead of the launch.